Plans to build 45 affordable homes in the open countryside in Wrenbury have been recommended for approval despite objections from the parish council and local residents, writes Belinda Ryan.
Sovini Homes wants to build the houses across two plots, on land south of Sandfield House, Station Road.
Cheshire East’s planning officers have recommended councillors at next Wednesday’s (October 27) meeting of the southern planning committee give the go ahead for the scheme.
They say its inclusion within the Wrenbury Neighbourhood Plan village settlement boundary means the site is acceptable in principle for residential development.
In a report, the planning officer states: “The principle of residential development on site has already previously been accepted at outline application stage, and this is considered to be a material consideration of this development.
“The site was split into two outline applications, the first approved at appeal for 18 dwellings and [the other] approved for 27 dwellings.
“This application is a full application for 45 dwellings, however, the red edge of the site is slightly larger than the previous indicative outlines.”
Wrenbury Parish Council has written to object four times since the application was first submitted in November 2019.
Some of the objections centre around whether there is a need for the whole site to be affordable housing.
These include the argument that 100% affordable housing will attract younger families, “however there are little employment opportunities in the village and therefore occupants will be car dependant”.
This, says the parish council, will not accord with Cheshire East policies to reduce carbon footprint.
It also argues there is no need for more housing in Wrenbury and there is no evidence that there is need for a 100 per cent affordable housing scheme in the area.
The other main objection raised by the parish council was the lack of school places in the village.
“Attendance of primary age children from this proposed development will be very difficult/impossible to achieve in these two [Wrenbury and Sound] schools, necessitating travel by car or bus to available places, likely in Nantwich,” the parish council states in the report.
Cheshire East has also received letters of objection from 22 households.
Among the many objections are arguments that the loss of open countryside will have a detrimental impact on the area; the local infrastructure is at full capacity; the location of the children’s play area is not appropriate and the loss of hedgerow along Station Road will have a detrimental impact on the street scene.
The southern planning committee meeting takes place at 10am on Wednesday, October 27 at Crewe Municipal Buildings.
What a shame the photo shows the wrong location for this development.
The site is very close to the T junction opposite the school. Your photo shows no traffic when in fact the average daytime count is 100 vehicles per hour. Given these ‘affordable houses’ is there a price cap of what is affordable? Given their status they each have 2 car parking spaces. So these 90 vehicles are unlikely to stay on the site thus adding to this already busy road, known as the worst stretch of road in the county, a description overheard from the dozens of cyclists who use this official cycle way through the village. A fair precentage of the 100 per hour are heavy goods vehicles from either the indutrial estate or the Aston seed mill. Will the developer quote these facts in their sales literature?